


Zuko (Not) Alone

by Waspscream



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst, Ba Sing Se, Canon Compliant, Comedy, Hurt Zuko (Avatar), Implied/Referenced Character Death, Post-Episode: s02e07 Zuko Alone, Zuko (Avatar)-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:39:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25703722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Waspscream/pseuds/Waspscream
Summary: Set between Zuko Alone and The Chase.Good news! Zuko's found a travel partner! Bad news! He's (probably) a hallucination!Or...Zuko and Lu Ten's ghost arguing for a few minutes.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 160





	1. Chapter 1

“What did he **do** to you?” The spectre asked. Zuko ignored it.

  


It wasn’t real, it couldn’t be. Zuko must just be hallucinating, a combination of his dehydration, lack of sleep, and the heat of the Earth Kingdom deserts. Lu Ten was gone.

“Don’t pretend like you can’t see me, Sparks.” He missed that voice. The voice of a young man, the closest thing he had to an older brother. The voice that always taunted him, who called him names and showed off. He would give everything to have that back. Uncle would too. 

The illusion persisted. “Forgive me for being blunt,  _ your highness _ .” Zuko’s mind mocked him with that title. “But I see no good reason for the Crown Prince of the Fire Nation to be wandering some desert on some starved ostrich-horse. Let alone with a nasty wound like that.” It pointed to the left half of his face. Zuko hated being reminded of how he looked. Once he had been handsome. Not anymore, though.

Zuko turned away from Lu Ten. He hadn’t looked at the face of his cousin in seven years, and yet he somehow found the barren ground below more interesting.

His “cousin” sighed, rubbing the back of his head. “Sorry, I… Guess that was a little insensitive.” Lu Ten closed his eyes for a moment, before looking out towards the fading desert sunset. “It’s getting dark. You should probably rest for the night.” Zuko said nothing, but slowly brought his ride to a stop.

  
  


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When Zuko woke up, he hoped the imaginary cousin haunting him had gone away, nothing but a daydream. Unfortunately, the universe seemed to love proving him wrong.

“Wake up, Sparks.” He said, with Lu Ten’s trademark smirk. The kind that Zuko got to see just before he landed both of them in trouble with father, one of the palace guards, or on a rare occasion, Fire Lord Azulon himself.

“Leave me alone.” Zuko said, launching a punch of fire. A punch of fire that passed harmlessly through his cousin.

“Ah, so you  _ can _ hear me. Good, I was worried you’d gone deaf as well.” He joked as Zuko began to pack up his supplies. “Now that that’s been established, let’s catch up. It’s been too long. Why don’t you start? Tell me  _ what  _ in Sozin’s name happened while I was gone?!” 

Zuko was on his knees, closing up his bag. “You aren’t real.” His dry voice responded. “I’m not crazy. I don’t talk to myself.” Zuko walked over to his Ostrich-Horse.

“Wait! Look, it’s been awhile since I’ve had anybody to talk to.” He said honestly. “We don’t have to talk about… What happened. Just… Let’s talk about something.”

Zuko sighed. “Fine.”

  
  


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Zuko could see the Avatar’s bison in the distance. He was getting closer. If only his non-existant co-pilot would shut up.

“So Sparks, I tell the cabbage merchant: ‘Two silver pieces?! For this rotten garbage? I should-’”

“Stop calling me that.” Zuko said. Voice dry

“What?”

“Sparks. Don’t call me that. I’m not the same failure who could barely make a puff of smoke. I’m stronger. I’m not so pathetic anymore, so why don’t you stop treating me that way?!” Zuko waited for his cousin to react, but he didn’t. Zuko put his hands on his face in frustration. “Ugh, this is  _ stupid _ ! You aren’t real. I’m arguing with my own mind…”

“Oh, I’m real all right. You want proof? Fine.” Lu Ten no longer seemed to be in a laughing mood. “It was just after we’d broken through the outer wall. We were told Ba Sing Se would be ours before the end of the month. We were in the middle of our attack on the outer ring. I remember thinking about how Dad and I were going to celebrate afterwards. How we’d laugh, party, and drink some of his favorite tea. Then I heard a shout… Then I felt something stab the back of my head. In that moment everything was fuzzy, like it was hard to focus. All I knew was I was on the ground. Then… it all faded away.” Lu Ten held a solemn expression. All Zuko felt was anger.

“This means nothing to me!” Zuko shouted. “There’s no way to prove that this isn’t all in my head!” Zuko wasn’t insane, he wasn’t. But he wasn’t gullible enough to believe his dead cousin was following him around.

“You could just ask dad about how I- Oh wait,  **you can’t** . Because you pushed him away like you’re pushing me away! You can’t help but push away  **everything** life offers you!”

Zuko growled. “ **Shut up!** ” Rage consumed him, and fire flew from his hands. The blue glow of his cousin faded in the burst of flames. His ostrich-horse shrieked in terror, and Zuko was thrown to the ground in it’s panic.

“If you want to be alone,” Lu Ten’s voice said, echoing in his head. “Then so be it. Feel free to wallow in your rage for the rest of your life. It won’t get you anywhere. I don’t know what happened to make you so angry and bitter, and I don’t think I want to. I came back to visit my cousin, but I don’t think he’s still here.” 

Lu Ten was gone, and as Zuko sat in the Earth Kingdom sands, he realized he was truly alone.


	2. Just Talking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We're back for part two!

Zuko didn’t like Ba Sing Se. It was always noisy, always busy. He could see Azula mocking him, calling him a filthy peasant and saying he belonged there. Still, he accepted it. He was with Uncle again and Uncle was happy here. So Zuko put up with Ba Sing Se no matter how much he wanted to leave.

It had only been a few days since he started working at the tea shop (and Jet had made an impromptu visit), and Zuko was already sick of it. So he did the only thing he could whenever he was upset, he went upstairs to his room and sat on his meditation mat. Before long, the sun began to fall behind Ba Sing Se’s great walls. It was only then that Zuko’s room was illuminated by a different form of light. This kind a ghostly blue rather than a golden yellow.

Zuko didn’t need to turn around to know what was happening. His cousin’s presence always filled him with a sense of safety. Lu Ten had kept him safe at the palace, and it was only once he was gone that Zuko saw the capital for the political nightmare it was.

“I’m sorry.” The two said to each other simultaneously. 

“I… I shouldn’t have left you, Sparks.” Lu Ten said. “You’ve definitely been through a lot while I was gone, and you didn’t have a tea-loving kook of a father to guide you the whole time.

Zuko kept his eyes closed tight. “I shouldn’t have pushed you away like that. You were right about me, but I’m doing my best to change.”

Lu Ten smiled.

“So, you’re finally accepting I’m real?”

“I… I asked Uncle how you died not long after we reunited. ‘An arrow to the back of the head’ lines up with what you said, I guess. And even if you aren’t real, I can at least pretend I still have you. At least for a little while.”

Lu Ten’s joy slowly faded. “If you don’t mind me asking, what happened after I, uh... after the siege.”

Zuko sighed. “A lot, I guess. Grandfather mysteriously died in his sleep, mom completely disappears, and father is crowned the new Fire Lord.” He laughed bitterly “That was just in the first couple of days.”

“Aunt Ursa’s gone? I… I’m sorry. So, it  _ wasn’t _ Azulon that gave you that scar? I just assumed…”

Zuko turned towards his cousin. “Just forget about it! It’s here to stay and that’s all that matters.” He crossed his arms.

Lu Ten was silent, and for a moment Zuko was worried he was going to scare him off again. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. No point in dwelling on the past, I guess.” He knew better than pushing Zuko too far this time. “Soooooo, what have you been doing in  _ Na _ Sing Se?”

“Working.”

“Working, really? That’s all?”

“Not much else to do, I guess. Maybe some meditating.”

Lu Ten struggled to contain his shock. How could this introverted little mess be related to himself? The self-proclaimed ‘Party Lord’ of Caldera Capital City. “Seriously, man? You could be out meeting girls, checking out the sights, getting into street fights!”

“Sounds great, but I kind of enjoy not being _ executed  _ for being an ‘Ash Maker’” Zuko put air quotes around the strange name he’d heard the Water Tribe call him in the past.

“Great Sozin, you’re boring!”

“Alright, alright. Fine.” Zuko put his hands on his forehead and sighed. “Why don’t we make an agreement. You decide not to disappear like before, and in return, we’ll spend some time checking out the city.”

Lu Ten shrugged. “Sure, not like I got any plans. The Spirit World can wait.”

For the first time in what felt like forever, Zuko smiled. Zuko _ laughed _ . “It’s good to have you back.”

Maybe Ba Sing Se wouldn’t be completely awful...

  
  


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In a closed tea shop downstairs, Iroh smiled. Things were going well for the two of them. He could settle down and make tea every day, Zuko was upstairs chatting with some nice girl he thought Iroh didn’t know about, and for some reason, Iroh felt like a piece of his life was no longer missing.

Behind him, Lu Ten began to cry a little. “I’ve missed you, dad…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kinda imagine Lu Ten as being voiced by Ben Schwartz. Or at least teenage Lu Ten.


End file.
